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About Australian Story

The above scene is of a newspaper story describing a drunkard orgy that followed the offloading of female convicts in Botany Bay. Although Aborigines were not mentioned in the story, I included them as black circles looking on from behind some trees.

For me, the orgy was interesting because each of the participants who were either involved in it, or watching it, would have had a different impression on it. I wondered what the Aborigines would have thought, what the military officers would have thought, what Governor Arthur Phillip would have thought, what the convicts would have thought, and finally, what I thought. I then concluded that my culture amounted to a subtle reconciliation of the various impressions of these diverse groups. I then wanted to know what my fellow Australians thought about it, and whether their impressions were similar to my own. As Australians have never been told how they should feel about this part of their heritage, when I showed it to them I was able to see a lot of virgin responses.

Port Jackson, Feb 6. Scenes of riot and debauchery after the disembarkation of the women convicts tonight transformed Sydney cove into something resembling a gin palace attached to a brothel.
  All this took place at night during a violent storm with lightening bolts which, at one place, split a tree in half, killing five sheep and a pig that were penned below it. 
   The licentious merriment began when some merchant seamen requested some grog from their captain. No doubt the man had good reason to comply, in the relief at getting rid of the last of his convicts, as he had faced a penalty of £40 for every convict missing.
   Soon the sailors and convicts were in and around the women's tents, some queuing for sex, others making love with women they had forged attachments on the voyage. Others were swearing, fighting or singing.
   While the scene was deplorable no action by the Governor nor his officers. Presumably they thought that intervention would have provoked a serious riot, and that it was best to wait for the morning to re-establish order.
 The women, cooped up on the voyage and for another 10 hot and intolerable days outside Sydney Cove, had not too many chaste figures among them.